UC Berkeley’s graduation on Saturday was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters’ chants, which began with a small group rising in the bleachers in the student section and ended with hundreds of students occupying an entire section of bleachers just behind the ceremonial stage.
During Chancellor Carol Christ’s welcome address, a few protesters stood up in the student section, waving Palestinian flags and leading chants of “Hey Hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go.”
UC Berkeley officials on stage stopped the speeches, asking the students to stop or they would be asked to leave. Christ was able to continue with her comments but the student speaker who was next, Sydney Roberts, had to stop talking halfway through her speech.
“It wouldn’t be a Berkeley graduation without a protest, I get it,” Roberts said, returning to the podium.
As the program continued, nearly 50 students left the stands to walk to the top of Memorial Stadium. For a moment, it appeared as if they might leave — but then the group turned and started to file into a section of the bleachers just beside the stage.
Within the next 20 minutes, they were joined by hundreds of their classmates, some wearing keffiyehs and graduation caps emblazoned with “Viva Palestina.” They stood on the metal bleachers, stomping and leading rallying cries of “Free, free Palestine.”
Security staff gathered near the protesters, but did not appear to ask them to leave.
As protesters walked down the aisles past the crowds, they were met with some jeers from audience members.
“Go back to Gaza,” yelled one man at a protester donning a keffiyeh.
“I am from Gaza,” she responded.
“You’re ruing it for everyone,” another man shouted after the group.
The program continued as planned. The 6,700 students graduating this year did not walk across the stage, as they often have in past years.
After the ceremony ended, families and students leaving the graduation walked out the stadium to a wall of protesters, hoisting signs and demanding that the University of California divest from Israel.
“People are our here celebrating this great achievement of theirs, but meanwhile, people are dying,” protester and Class of 2024 graduate Rebekah Joy told this news organization. “How could I not be here?”
UC Berkeley’s graduation ceremony has been the venue for all sorts of protests over the years. Just on Friday, protests also took place at UC Berkeley’s law school commencement ceremony, when a group of students took off their graduation gowns to unveil white shirts underneath spelling out “UC Divest.”
This is a developing story. Come back for updates.
